Through an extraordinary collection of photographs, Jim Thorpe
tells the story of not only the athlete but its famed coal-mining
industry.
What was originally named Mauch Chunk, Jim
Thorpe was established on the Lehigh River as a shipping depot for
anthracite coal in 1818 by Josiah White, a Philadelphia Quaker and
brilliant engineer, and his trusted business partner, Erskine Hazard. By
1829, White and Hazard had founded the Lehigh Coal & Navigation
Company and built an efficient transportation system that moved coal
nine miles over the mountains to Mauch Chunk by Switchback Gravity
Railroad, and 46 miles along the Lehigh Canal to Easton. With the
arrival of the railroads, the Switchback became a major tourist
attraction. As rail excursionists descended on Mauch Chunk to experience
a hair-raising ride on America's first roller coaster and enjoy the
magnificent scenery, the coal shipping town, billed by the railroads as
the Switzerland of America, became a tourist destination second in
popularity only to Niagara Falls. In a story stranger than fiction, the
town exchanged its name for the name of Jim Thorpe when the 1912 Olympic
hero was laid to rest there in 1954. Jim Thorpe (Mauch Chunk)
tells the story of the athlete and his burial, the Switchback Gravity
Railroad, the Lehigh Canal, the social scene, and the town's Victorian
legacy.
